Intellectual Property Theft !

An evolving case of intellectual  property theft highlights the problem for Australian inventors who dutifully patent their inventions on world markets before putting them into commercial production, only to find a copycat version suddenly appearing from China.

The production of honey by bee keepers has for centuries followed a very predictable method.  The bees are contained in a hive close to the flowers from which they draw nectar to make honey.  At time intervals, the bee keepers wear protective clothing - and use smoke to pacify the angry bees while they open the hives and extract the honeycomb and remove the honey.   It is a labour intensive process.

This Australian inventor - Cedar Anderson - called his invention " Flow Hive " and spent years perfecting its method of allowing the honey to  flow through the honeycomb and collect via a spigot at the front of the hive.   This took more than a decade and during that time test hives were under close examination by bee keepers in Tasmania and later in other states.

Anderson - and co inventor Tom Kuhn - brought their idea to commercial fruition by appealing for development funds on the crowdfunding platform Indiegogo.  The method is now successfully in use in over a hundred countries.

Suddenly, what appears to be a direct copy and called " Tapcomb " appeared on the market in direct competition.  It makes similar claims, using identical terms and the Australians can find no evidence of any attempt to secure a patent, either here or overseas.    It has also proved impossible to discern the exact place of production - except that it is coming from somewhere in that great mass of small manufacturers that exist on the Chinese mainland.

Making a case and finding someone to sue in China can be a nightmare and that is not helped by the Chinese government which seems to have a problem understanding the concept of " intellectual property ".   It seems to be a matter of a small Australian company with limited finance faced with a invisible opponent which can continue to garner market share indefinitely by avoiding the protection that the patent confers.

Flow Hive may be able to influence the large companies in the honey business from using this patent intrusion but honey collection seems to be the prerogative of many thousands of small independents who are classed as hobby farmers.  Even at price parity, this unwelcome interloper can be the difference between success and failure for their business venture.

These Australian inventors have the right to expect the Australian government to act on their behalf and take this up with the government of China.  Commerce will become lawless unless patent rights are observed - and eventually China will suffer a similar fate with Chinese patents ignored unless they adopt the rule of law.